


what was Christ if not God’s desire to smell his own armpit?

by Ship_theboybands



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Religious Conflict, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 23:59:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6929665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ship_theboybands/pseuds/Ship_theboybands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You wonder why you dream forests and not churches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what was Christ if not God’s desire to smell his own armpit?

You wonder why you dream forests and not churches. You wonder if your creation is a farce; a blasphemous retelling of Genesis using dark magic and tricks. And then Opal climbs on your chest and you are happy for her to be steward to all you’ve made, and you consider the desire to make worlds upon worlds just for her. To love something you made so wholly is beyond questions and doubts.

 

You are bored at church- the same church you’ve gone to every Sunday with the same father, and mother, and brother, and questions- when you lean over and whisper your doubts into your brother’s ear because last time you asked Dad he just repeated what the priest said in different words. Declan is bigger but not _much_ bigger and he’s usually straight with you, more straight than Dad anyway.

“How come Jesus says turn the other cheek but Papa teaches us to hit?” You whisper, your voice shaking a little with the strain of speaking quieter than the sermon, sitting half in your brother’s lap so you can lean up to his ear to whisper. It’s a question you’ve been too afraid to ask your Dad in case he stops teaching you boxing.

Declan is so unresponsive you wonder if he heard, and you’re about to ask again, pinch his side or something, when his brows begin to furrow across his forehead. Declan has big, bushy eyebrows like a squirrel’s tail, and they make the same shape when Declan’s confused as when he’s mad- probably because the two emotions tend to coincide. Declan doesn’t like things he doesn’t understand.

“Sometimes… there’s evil bigger than violence,” Declan says finally, barely loud enough to hear. “I think if the Devil broke free and was going to burn the whole world down, it would be wrong for Jesus not to knock him out.”

You consider this for a moment, and then nod. It makes sense to you.

 

Kissing Adam is the most pure and dirty thing in your life. He presses you against your childhood bed where you used to close your eyes and say your prayers and ask why and wait for answers, and it jolts you for a moment. Adam answers your hesitation with a nip to your jaw _hey, I’m here, you listening? You paying attention?_ and you run your fingers up his arms until you’re circling his hands, putting his fingers to your lips.

Adam is burning hot and brutal and you drink him up like communion wine.

 

It’s a car or a confessional and it’s Gansey’s quest or it’s your salvation and you don’t worship him but you would give all your wealth over for him and follow him around the desert if he desired that, but he doesn’t.

 

You meet the devil every night that winter- when some plan or prophet or divine intervention leaves your father beaten and bloody for his son to find. There is no holy spirit in the forest and hell beasts claw at you until there’s nothing left. 

Until you wake with your arms stretched out and a towel pressed to each wrist and Gansey saying, “Ronan, Ronan, God, Shit, Please,” and he is the only thing for which you would halt anything.

And so you live.

 

“I didn’t know what the fuck to do he was… he was bleeding _black_ Ronan-“

“I know.”

“-It was… it was ungodly, Ronan. He was writhing around like… like-“

“Like he was being unmade, Declan, I _know_ -”

“What was happening? What happened to you, Ronan? Why did this-“

“I told you, Declan, it was-“

“It would just be me left, Ronan. If you went… you’re his creator, you’d both be gone and Mom and Dad and-“

“I know, Dec. I’m sorry.”

 

You wake up one morning from a gruesome dream with nails in your hands and feet. There is a moment of earth shattering pain splintering through your body before you promptly hurl yourself into sleep again and dream up a solution. 

And then you lay there, sweating, in pools of blood, and think _Sorry Lord, sorry, I am so sorry, what am I, what am I, please God_.

 

Blue’s Judas kiss sends Gansey to his knees and you gasp awake from one hell and find yourself in another. There is his sacrificial form, laying with his arms outstretched like a cross, repenting for the sins of the world and for you and you think that if He doesn’t help now He’s even more sadistic than you’ve been led to believe.

 

Your hand is in Adam’s when Declan’s car pulls up outside St Anges, with Mathew in the back. You can see Declan’s eyes furrow from inside- he doesn’t like things he doesn’t understand.

 

This is the moment magnified: Your fist connecting with Declan’s jaw with the expert punch your father gave you both. 

Here is the moment repeated in chronological order: Dad’s funeral, your bedroom, the kitchen, Aglibony Academy, Monmouth Manufacturing, the car park outside Monmouth Manufacturing, the carpark outside Nino’s, Monmouth again, Declan’s dorm room, (ect, ect, ect). 

Here is the moment blind: Adrenaline coursing through your body, the rush of air against your knuckles and then skin, a sickly crack, someone shouting _stop, Ronan, oh Jesus Christ_.  
Here it is with your eyes again: Declan’s eyebrows furrowing, furrowing, furrowing, going up. 

 

Adam lets you into his bedroom every time. It’s late or you’re wet from the rain or you’re drunk and rude and angry and he lets you in.

Laying on his floor is laying on the roof of the church below and you imagine falling right through.

Right before you go to sleep you look over at the frowning lines of Adams face and think _thank you, good Samaritan_. 

 

You wonder if they are your angels; Mathew and Chainsaw and Opal. You wonder if they will grow to hate you. You wonder if you’ve dammed them, if they are unnatural and unholy. You wonder if they are the only pure thing on this earth. 

 

The first thing Gansey does when he wakes up is wipe the black from your cheeks. You are aware that he was saved by no divine intervention- that it was you and Adam and magic, and you find no discomfort in this fact.

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'the new religion' by chris abani


End file.
